When Human Rights Become ‘Too Political’

On April 24 Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Memorial Day in the Hebrew calendar will compel the Jewish world to consider the full impact of remaining silent in the face of injustice and oppression. Ahead of that solemn day, I feel sickened and – frankly – nothing short of horrified by the silencing of my own voice in corners of the Jewish and broader community based on the accusation that my messages and concerns about the upholding of human rights are deemed “too political.”

The latest repetition of this pattern came after my recent viewing of the brutal, factual, documentary film No Other Land about Israel’s West Bank settlements. I had sent an email recommending the Academy Award-winning film to various Jewish community listservs of which I have been a part over the years. In response, I received a message from one progressive synagogue stating that the documentary was deemed “too political” to mention on that community’s listserv. This response aligned with the muzzling of this film from distribution in the West; it was shocking, however, to receive it from a community to which I feel close – one that claims to keep open a wide tent for differing views.

This is not the first time my voice has been silenced. In early 2024, a well-known international listserv of spiritual leaders from across the Jewish world decided to remove a section of their website that I had carved out – and on which I had posted for years – about death penalty abolition. The fatal blow to my corner of the webpage came when I published on that site a link to my professionally edited Jurist article entitled Donald Trump and Capital Punishment: Sounding the Death Knell for American Democracy. The organization’s leadership explained that any reference to a political candidate was deemed inappropriate for a community of Jewish leaders. No justification for this reasoning was provided.

Such censorship reminded me of when a number of synagogues had informed me that it would spark too much controversy to invite me to speak to their congregations about the work of the group“L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty”, which I co-founded. It had been difficult enough to receive this kind of response from repressive institutions, such as Tennessee’s Death Row. In that instance, I had attempted to send a peace-loving, faith-based group’s death penalty abolition book to the individuals condemned to death there. Tennessee prison officials reacted to my effort by banning the volume from the institution altogether. Such shunning was not easy to bear. It was even harder, though, to endure a similar gagging of my death penalty abolition message in nominally progressive congregations.

One clerical colleague has affectionately called me –  “a political guy.” If this accusation is true, I am compelled to consider what other violations of human rights in recent history might have been dismissed as “too political” for me to have publicly addressed:

Would I have been silenced for writing op-ed’s in the 1930s speaking out against Hitler’s inauguration of his infamous Aktion T4 protocol – the forerunner of today’s lethal injections – to kill people deemed “unworthy of life?”

Would I have been muted were I to have advocated against the Trail of Tears or Japanese internment camps, just as I was vilified for supporting Palestinian human rights in such Jurist articles as My Fellow Jewish Leaders Should not Toe the Party Line on Israel or The Cost of Revenge: A Cantor’s Critique of Israel’s Response to Hamas?

Would my words have been stifled if I spoke out against South African apartheid, or other ethnic cleansing campaigns,  just as I was made persona non grata in certain Jewish circles for similar actions? One such “crime” was adding my name to a list of over 350 Jewish leaders who signed a New York Times advertisement deeply objecting to Trump’s proposed ethnic cleansing in Gaza. (For some, that campaign was traifed simply because the signatory list included South African Jewish human rights activist Peter Beinart’s name. This lamentable reality was reminiscent of how other human rights initiatives were eschewed by sections of my Jewish community simply because they were sponsored by Amnesty International, which was written off as “antisemitic” for its critique of the policies of the Israeli government over the years.)

It was far from easy for me to take these risks knowing the criticisms that would come. Yet, in the end, my conscience is clearer for having done so. I can only hope that I would have had the courage to do the same if the odds were even higher, as is the case for so many of the world’s true human rights heroes who risk their lives to defend universal ethical standards.

Excuses abound for the gaslighting that is ignited in the face of actions that are deemed “too political.” Trusted friends have said I should not write about the Middle East because I do not live there and cannot therefore fully comprehend its realities. Others also have stated that I have no right to speak out against the human rights violation of capital punishment, as I have not lost an immediate family member to murder and cannot know just how helpful the death penalty can be for the feeling of “justice.” Some have even chided me for publishing an essay about my concerns that convicted felon Donald Trump may again flaunt the law and seek a lifelong presidential term. The latter criticism implied that I was not “qualified” to write such an opinion, since I did not hold a degree in history beyond the undergraduate level, and could not begin to understand political complexities since I have not served in public office.

Pastor Martin Niemoller’s timeless warning in his 1946 poem “First they came” offers an enduring response to this kind of logic that inhibits voices from expressing their deeply held social concerns:

First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out –

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left ao speak out for me.

The danger of remaining silent in the face of any injustice is one of the most essential lessons of the Holocaust. A telling illustration of this point is how Adolf Hitler justified one genocide by citing international silence over a previous one. On August 22, 1939, in preparation for the impending invasion of Poland, Hitler stated to Reichmarshal Hermann Goering and the commanding generals at Obersalzberg:

I have issued the command – and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad – that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness – for the present only in the East – with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

The ultimate result of Hitler’s application of this reasoning was the very destruction of European Jewry that is memorialized on Yom Hashoah.

One need not look far this year for confirmation of the lethal relationship upon which Hitler relied. It so happens that April 24 – the date on which Holocaust Memorial Day falls in the Hebrew calendar – also is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. On April 24, 1915 – which Armenians refer to as “Armenian Martyrs’ Day – Turkish soldiers rounded up the Armenian intelligentsia, priests, and other community leaders in the city that Armenians refer to as Constantinople, killed them, and posted heads on spikes throughout the city. This was their signal for massacres and forced-march deportations to start everywhere. In response, the world was deafeningly silent. Human rights icon Elie Wiesel vividly comprehended the connection between such historical events, poignantly writing: “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Wiesel’s charge reminds us of the danger of silence in the face of all human rights violations.

So, I shall continue to sound the human rights alarm for all peoples – Israelis, Palestinians, Americans and all others. This includes speaking out against all executions. I feel this especially where lethal injections, gassings and firing squads put to death incarcerated human beings directly on Yom HaShoah or International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is proven that this horrific synchronicity has occurred – more than once. It again proves the case this year, when Alabama will be employing the Aktion T4 lethal injection on my penpal James Osgood. This literally will take place while the Jewish world remembers the Nazi legacy on April 24. I shall respectfully disagree with other Jews and non-Jews who feel that by amplifying this reality, I desecrate the memories of Holocaust victims and survivors, among them my own family members. Rather than remaining silent when the most fundamental right to life itself is flouted, I feel I owe my victimized ancestors the honor of calling this reality exactly what it is.

This is precisely why I will continue with this practice, even when executions occur on what should be joyous occasions. Case in point, it happens that Texas has scheduled the state killing of Matthew Johnson on the evening of May 20 – the exact hour of the 2025 Gala for T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. On that celebratory day, too, my fellow Jewish activists and I will not be silenced as we hold by T’ruah’s very name and once again stand solemnly for human rights.

I pledge to continue this call to recognize the sanctity of life for all human beings. This includes the Israeli hostages abducted and still languishing in Gaza, as well as the innocent Palestinian civilians and children being slaughtered there. It includes advocacy for the recently beaten and arrested Co-Director of “No Other Land” Hamdan Bellal; for organizers of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence for the West Bank; for the detention of students Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk; and for the deportation of so many others here in the U.S. As Elie Wiesel called for the abolition of the death penalty without exception, I vow never again to be silent in the fade of oppression – no matter how “political” it may seem to some. Over time, I hope that many others will join me in putting human rights first.